Grantmakers in the Arts

“From digital libraries to fully immersive schools, Indigenous leaders are reclaiming and spreading cultural knowledge to ensure it doesn't get lost,” explains Fix Solutions Lab associate editor Claire Elise Thompson.

The Upstart Co-Lab Member Community has invested nearly $8 million in funds and startups, and Upstart plans to launch a $100 million impact investment portfolio for the Inclusive Creative Economy. The Upstart Co-Lab 2021 Impact Report details the impact framework, which tracks the impact of investments in the creative economy across five dimensions.

Media Impact Funders (MIF) share a glimpse of their time at Sundance Film Festival with a Film Funders Follow-up. In this conversation with Vincent Stehle, MIF executive director, Sonya Childress and Sahar Driver, Color Congress, and Denae Peters, Perspective Fund, participants discuss a new field-building organization called the Color Congress.

In a new report, "Studying Early Pandemic Data: Did Giving Sustain the Arts?," SMU DataArts shares analysis on the impact of giving to the arts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Daniel Fonner, associate director for Research writes the pandemic "has turned the arts and culture sector upside down in many ways."

The Barr Foundation (Barr) seeks consultant partners to support the newly launched cohort, Powering Cultural Futures (PCF), a new six-year initiative that provides funding, technical assistance, peer networking, and other supports to a diverse cohort of 15 BIPOC-rooted organizations in Massachusetts.

Victor Tavarez, John Harper, and Fay Hanleybrown present, “Four ways funders of collective impact efforts can help foster trust to strengthen collaboration and achieve greater impact,” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

A new report from Salzburg Global Seminar, The Creative Power of the Arts: Reimagining Human and Planetary Flourishing looks at creative reforms in the target areas of climate, health, education, and justice. According to the announcement, "As the world confronts the compounded impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, and structural injustices, societies are bracing for a protracted and complex period of reassessment, reimagination, and restructuring. The culture and arts sector must be at the table and included in decision-making processes as societies seek to eschew a return to 'normal' and instead reimagine more creative pathways towards human and planetary flourishing."

A new bipartisan bill in Congress proposes a $300 million federal grants and commissions program for art workers. The Creative Economy Revitalization Act (CERA) is "a joint effort between hundreds of cultural organizations to stimulate the creative economy through public art projects across the United States,” pens Billy Anania in Hyperallergic.